"Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," rescuer Juanita Symes told the Associated Press. "She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience."

Interestingly, dolphins have also been known to lend a hand (er, flipper) to humans in need. In 2007, surfer Todd Endris survived a shark attack, thanks to a pod of dolphins that formed a protective ring around the surfer and helped him safely to shore.

While dolphins are vastly different from humans, they share more similarities with people than we might think.

According to Emory University's Lori Marino, a neuroscientist who specializes in dolphin research, dolphins are similar to apes and monkeys when it comes to intelligence, social behavior and communications. Marino told the Associated Press that, though dolphins differ from humans on a neurological level, "the more you learn about them, the more you realize that they do have the capacity and characteristics that we think of when we think of a person."